Saturday, July 9, 2011

Rated M for Most People

Now-of-days you may hear of children being hurt or sent to jail for repeating things they’ve seen on video games, but should the fault for their behavior go to the games or just to the people who play them. For some odd reason, many people believe that video games have little cultural value and contribute to aggressive, violent behavior, but in reality, or how I see it, it actually is helping the world move along.

Video games are just a misunderstood art form that brings out the truth in our hearts while “having a good time.” These games no longer deserve to be considered a “child’s diversion,” as many teachers call them, but they should be seen as a valuable educational tool. That explains why video games are being used as part of a course at UCLA that involves observing artificial realities in hopes of gaining a glimpse into our anthropological beginnings.

As I see it, the games of today are rarely one-sided. They all aren’t just telling you to shoot this person and steal that car, but they run more on a system of morality. They don’t just force you to do all bad or do all good; instead they let you make the decision, choosing a path of good or evil, whichever suits you. You have the choice to help people out as you go about your adventure or to kill anyone in your way just because you needed to blow off some steam. These games aren’t brainwashing the youth of today, they’re unmasking the evil in their hearts.

I understand that there are games out there that are pretty much one-sided, for example the grand thief auto game series, that is all about doing bad and all you do is bad things. But think about how your children are introduced to these games; is it the game companies allowing the children to play? No, it’s their job to make the game and provide a label that suggests the age limits for these games, not to keep them from your children. It’s the job of the parents to keep whatever they don’t want in their child’s life out and if they do a bad job at it then it’s just oh well, deal with it.

Many workers benefit from video game training since video games can enhance visual-motor skills, hand-eye coordination and visual attention. One of these jobs is being a laparoscopic surgeon, who is a surgeon who uses a technique in which operations in the stomach are performed through small incisions. It has been proven in an article, “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Video Games,” that surgeons who played video games more than 3 hours per week had 37% fewer errors, were 27% faster with using the drill and 33% better at task than those who didn’t play video games. That shows that better video game skills equal better work skills.

Video games have proven they’ve done more good than bad in its lifetime so far. So do games have little cultural value and contribute to aggressive, even violent, behavior like many believe? Looks like the answer to that questions just might be no.